


salt skin (and chlorine hair)

by skree



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: M/M, RageHappy, glorious ones, handjobs, hotel pools and very wet rooster teeth employees make for a very interesting 2am, joelay - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:07:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skree/pseuds/skree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A late-night-turned-early-morning rendezvous between two very different people stems from a suggestion to go for a swim, because for whatever reason, the idea wasn't unappealing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	salt skin (and chlorine hair)

**Author's Note:**

> Has it really been so long?

The first time it happened, he was convinced it was an accident.

Ray was having trouble falling asleep. He couldn’t even blame Gavin’s gentle snoring from the other side of the room or the occasional tossing and turning from the sofa Michael had claimed, because he’d managed to nod off in circumstances far less ideal. Tonight, his eyes instead traversed the same paths over and over the ridges of the tiled ceiling of his hotel room and fell back on the digital glow of the clock whenever he just couldn’t help it, though he really _tried_ to help it after he watched an hour crawl by. So he noticed immediately when his phone lit up with a message from Joel, if you’d call it one, since it was just one single word.

_Pool?_

It was strange, really. Unexpected. But it didn’t particularly read like a question.

He’d given Joel his number on a trip they’d taken to New York, in case he needed a DD to come pick him up, or if anything else had happened that he could be of use for. The company wasn’t exactly one to use the buddy system, but he had enough good sense to know that if anyone did anything stupid, which was not only likely, but probable, he had the capacity to keep things from getting any worse. But Joel never needed it, and if he did, not once did he ever use it. Not that he really expected him to.

He didn’t expect him to have kept it, either.

Tonight was different, somehow. He wasn’t sure what brought him to his feet and sent him shuffling to the second floor in his boxers (and a shirt whose owner he couldn’t presently confirm) that he’d tugged over his head. It all smelled like hotel, anyway. He definitely wasn’t sure what made him stop the door from closing with anything past a subtle little _click_ of the mechanized lock as if to keep it a secret when he stepped into the hall, two fingers sliding off the polished wood as he decided to opt for the stairs instead of the elevator. Those fingers ran down the bars beneath the banister as he counted the flights, passing over one, two, three landings with six more to go.

He ducked out of the staircase and followed the arrows on the signs to the pool that he was _sure_ was closed, shoes only half-tugged on but still dragging on the carpet. He didn’t have time to wonder how long he’d have to wait once his eyes fell on a card wedged between the doorframe and the latch, and didn’t bother fighting the smile playing at his lips when he saw the posted hours that had intended to close the pool three hours before. If he knew him better, he might have called it typical, but because he knew him best from the words spoken of him by his friends, he figured Joel wasn’t much of a proponent for the typical.

The card slid from its place against the latch’s keep easily, and when Ray pushed the door open, he was met with a blast of warm air that blew through his bangs. He closed it gently behind him, and by the time he’d turned to face the room, his eyes had started adjusting a little better to the low light and he hardly had to squint behind his thick frames to see the dark silhouette sitting on the edge of the pool.

So he padded over, depositing his shoes near a chair with a towel tossed into the seat, the card key from the door between his fingers. He reached the edge, squatting beside the older man and holding out the card before offering a quiet ‘you’re up late’, a greeting perhaps coming out laced with a little more of his own fatigue than he’d intended.

But Joel didn’t move, allowing his shoulders to rise and fall as he glanced past laced fingers that peaked at the bridge of his nose, thumbs at rest beneath his chin. The lights beneath the water reflected off the fluid surface, glittering orange in his eyes and dancing in rippling waves that bounced off the ceiling.

“Couldn’t sleep.” He moved a hand through dark hair, the crazy hair that always managed to look a little different day to day, before pulling the card from between Ray’s fingertips and slipping it in the pocket of his shorts. Ray pulled his legs from beneath him, swinging them out over the water’s surface and taking a seat next to Joel, toes slipping beneath the water’s edge hesitantly.  “Pool’s heated,” Joel murmured with something that sounded vaguely like amusement as Ray relaxed and let his legs dangle from the edge, submerging his calves so the water nearly reached his knees.

They sat together like that for a while, wordless. Ray imagined Joel’s mind could’ve been going a mile a minute, for all he knew – for all he _didn’t –_ so he kept quiet and waited and watched. Watched the lights illuminate the water from where they were tucked away along the pool’s edge, watched the way the stars outside the windows flickered in the sky from the clouds that passed between them, and relished in not having to think. They didn’t have to put on a show here in the silence, didn’t have to act every bit as perfect or crazy as they were expected to be, didn’t have to plaster on smiles when they were really just tired.

And he _was_ tired. Not the kind of tired that stopped with sleep, but the kind that was eased by silence, a departure from predictability, an absence of sound and noise and color in the place of the insanity that came along with the perfect job. Maybe it just took time spend doing something he wasn’t supposed to do to realize it.

Maybe that’s why he wasn’t here alone.

His thoughts were interrupted when Joel lifted himself from the edge by his arms, shoulders tensing at the shift in weight, before he moved his feet from where they rested against the wall to point to the bottom of the pool. _Was he going to…?_ He watched as the older man – _yep –_ slid himself over the ledge and disappeared beneath the water, fully clothed, shirt billowing around him as the liquid tugged it from where it lay against his skin, and Ray idly contemplated doing the same.

Joel stayed under the water for about a minute, and Ray had a brief moment of panic when the thought crossed his mind that he might be watching someone trying to drown themselves, but when bubbles came up and Joel kicked off the bottom to streamline out to the pool’s open expanse before them, he breathed easy again. He finally came up about fifteen feet out, emerging to the surface with a quick shake of his head, tilting it up to let the oxygen fill his lungs. He opened his eyes and met Ray’s glance for a moment before he glided beneath the surface once more, kicking his legs to maneuver himself to the opposite end. Ray raised an eyebrow once he went under. Something about minimalist ways of summoning him that didn’t even seem to resemble invitations, and yet, maybe he and Joel were simply more alike than he gave them credit for.

Ray didn’t really think about the fact that he hadn't brought clothes perhaps more appropriate to swim in when he let himself rise to his feet, since he'd come down here anyway, after all, but he decided he didn’t really care when he padded over to the submerged stairs that twisted up from the corner of the shallower side, wading in up to his waist and seating himself on the second lowest step. The water hit him a little quicker than expected, but it came up to his chest just enough for his shoulders to poke out of the water.

He sat there for a long time, letting the water flow around him in a strange sort of tranquil embrace, and it felt good. Joel hadn’t said a word, instead swimming circuits from one end of the pool to the other in broad strokes, ducking beneath the surface to kick off the wall and start again. Ray thought about staying until the sun came up, vaguely wondering if Joel planned on swimming laps until the moon was no longer high in the sky.

It was calming to watch, to hear the water moving past the man, almost like Joel was chasing the thoughts from his mind. For all Joel’s silence, Ray figured, he mirrored himself in prattle that just sat on the surface, because that’s just how each of them did things. So he kept count of Joel’s laps until he couldn’t anymore, letting the water pass through his outstretched fingers, and the world spun on.

After a while, a spattering of water nearby told Ray that Joel was getting out, so he opened eyes he didn’t remember closing and turned his head. The water poured out of Joel’s saturated clothes and onto the tiled floor lining the perimeter of the pool, filling the gaps between the squares and running off the side in trails as he hoisted himself up on the side nearest to Ray, a few feet from the steps. Joel spun his torso to place himself back on the edge, fingers curling around the edge to slide himself back before he slung his legs up from the water and lay parallel to the pool’s side, back flat on the tile. Pulling his hands behind his neck, he let his head fall to the side, sending a glance in Ray’s direction.

“I didn’t know you were part fish,” Ray murmured with a smile, which Joel met with a small one of his own.

“Mm.”

Ray glided over to the water’s edge and lifted himself out, moving to sit cross-legged on the tile next to the older man. Joel was breathing deep, not exactly heavy, but he looked exhausted, the sort of exhaustion that rests deep in your bones and clings to your muscles early in the day and well into the night. Ray supposed they all felt like that, all the regular contributors to the turning gears of the company machine, but he’d never really gotten a chance to see it up close past the familiarity of Geoff’s demeanor and the way the rest of them played it off. But here Joel lay, exposed in a way, and it made the atmosphere in the room feel like it was on an entirely separate planet than the one Ray had been used to at the office. Here, they breathed the same air, dripped with the same water.

Pulling his arms close at the change in temperature, Ray turned to him, his brows furrowing. “You’re not cold?” he asked, hoping the sound of his own voice wouldn’t usher the light fog sitting over his mind like a blanket away.

Joel shook his head. “Are _you_?” He moved up to rest on his shoulders to take a look at Ray, who was clutching his shoulders to keep the shivers from wracking his body. And if he hadn’t known any better, Ray would’ve thought he saw Joel’s eyes hone in acutely on his own when he realized that the shake of his head rather starkly contradicted the way he shuddered not too long afterward.

“Then take off…” Joel didn’t bother finishing his thought, reaching over to tug at the side of Ray’s sopping t-shirt impishly, in his lazy sort of way, instead. Ray nodded hesitantly, sheepishly maybe, but he was probably right, so he pulled his glasses off his nose before lifting his arms to peel his shirt off. His nails grazed his skin when he tugged at the hem, the soaked cotton refusing to release its grip on his torso without a few decent yanks for good measure. When he managed to expose a stripe of pale skin beneath it, he started to reconsider, as the air of the room blew cool against his skin before the residual dampness left behind had evaporated.

He’d gotten it about halfway over his head before Joel reached up and took the bunched fabric in his fingers, giving it a well-placed and slightly mischievous tug and quite effectively pulling it off his head, but making Ray fall forward in the process. His arm flew out to catch him from where he figured he’d collide with tile, but instead, his hand landed against solid flesh, and his face stopped inches away from Joel’s own.

Ray didn’t feel the shirt drop from his hand, but he did feel Joel’s eyes on him, _confirmed_ his eyes on him with the presently _quite_ aware pair of his own, and if he’d been a little less startled, maybe he wouldn’t have heated up so quick. But then again, he’d never seen Joel look at him like that before in his life, and all he wanted to do was bask in it.

He didn’t know what he was doing, felt like he was trying to figure things out in high school again, honestly, but his hands were where they were and the heat rolling off Joel’s body was too warm to ignore. Maybe something had been bound to happen the minute he set foot in the room, but he had no intent on stopping whatever it was that they’d set in motion, unintentional and spontaneous and thoroughly representative of chaos as it was. It was taking a chance, a _big_ chance, maybe, but it was three o’clock in the fucking morning the last time he’d checked, they were lying on the side of a hotel pool in New York that locked the minute the door swung shut, and when that chance looked him in the eyes, it would’ve been a flagrant lie to say it didn’t look fantastically appealing.

So Ray closed the distance, took a breath, and pressed his lips to Joel’s before he could spin up too many screaming second thoughts.

He felt the breath Joel sucked past his lips, but he didn’t feel the tension in his muscles that he’d been expecting. And Ray certainly hadn’t been expecting an arm to snake around his waist to pull him on top of the older man, nor his other hand to find the inside of Ray’s thigh and stretch it wide over his hips so Ray was straddling him. Ray closed his fist in the other’s shirt, shut his eyes to keep the scenery from spinning, and all but gave himself over on the spot when he felt Joel’s tongue against his own, pressing for entry. He felt the heat pool in his groin almost embarrassingly rapidly, but the way he was kissing him felt like he’d never been kissed in his life. A hand worked itself over the pulsing skin on Ray’s neck still shining with water and up into his hair, which Ray probably would’ve greeted with more than a light gasp against Joel’s mouth when he came up for air if his consciousness weren’t filled with all teeth and tongue and lips. So Ray let himself be moved, let gravity pull him close so his body pressed tight to Joel’s own.

Heat was all there was, embellished perhaps by displaced water falling from their hair in wayward tendrils down the skin of their arms and across their hands, but neither could think about anything except the contact that proved startlingly electric, contact that they both were aching for more of and couldn’t stop to think too long about lest the moment dissipate in steam and humid darkness.

Ray nearly gasped aloud into Joel’s mouth when he rolled his hips, wet fabric doing nothing to disguise how hard he was getting or to change how fantastic the trace of Joel’s own erection felt against him, only to have Joel buck up against him from the floor. It felt like heaven, gave Ray a jolt of pleasure that burned slow and dangerously hot and made him want to ride it out again and again until he couldn’t feel anymore. Joel’s hands found Ray’s sides easily, moving carefully across the damp skin and sending his fingers tracing up Ray’s ribs before they wrapped around his hips and _moved_ , rubbing their cocks against each other and drawing the faintest of groans from deep in Joel’s throat.

His fingers traced down the side of Ray’s boxers, still very much stuck to his skin, trailing along the seam at his thigh. Ray had to grip Joel’s shirt tight to keep from quaking in his grasp as his fingertips moved up the inside of his leg unhurried- no, _agonizingly_ slowly, and gently came to rest at the slit in his boxers, waiting, taking the edge between his fingers and sliding them up the material like a question unspoken. Ray willed himself to breathe, ignored the heart pounding in his ears because of just how badly his cheeks were flushed and his pupils were probably blown because he wanted this _just_ that much, and when he didn’t sense protest, Joel finally, _finally_ took him in his hand and went to work.

The first stroke on his dick nearly knocked the air from his lungs, because it felt like he never wanted anything more than he did during the time it took Joel’s hand to slide beneath the dark fabric, his touch impossibly warm against Ray’s skin. Ray couldn’t do anything but cling desperately to his shoulder, his hips rolling gently into Joel’s hand, where he stroked him base to tip and got Ray panting fitfully, letting groans that barely touched his breath fall past his lips. Joel easily swallowed the sounds Ray didn’t bother stopping, swiping his tongue across the younger’s lip when his mouth fell open and his hips jerked forward. Joel’s hand was experienced, though, his touch seemingly effortless and his pace flowing perfectly, practically dragging out perfect figure eights with his wrist in ways Ray had never even imagined. He startled himself with a moan that fell from his lips when Joel did a delightfully unfamiliar something with his thumb and his index finger, actually, and it was loud and high-pitched and absolutely _dripping_ in sin. Joel must have liked the way it tasted against his mouth, or perhaps the fact that Ray lurched in his grip and dug his nails into his skin, because he just smiled and did it again.

Joel let out a ragged breath himself when Ray shifted his hips experimentally, though, so Ray tethered himself back to earth long enough to crack his eyes open, hook his fingers in Joel’s waistband, and feel the grip on his own cock tighten when he tugged Joel’s shorts down. Ray fumbled with the wet material, eventually maneuvering around it well enough to brush his fingers over Joel’s pelvic bone and against his erection before curling them around it, savoring the hiss he drew out of the man beneath him. He bit his lip when Joel sent a surge through his spine, drawing out a long pull by the way his thumb traced up the side, and when he mirrored it, he was rewarded with Joel’s first noise of the evening as well. His free hand found Ray’s lower back while his own arched right off the floor to press into the smaller form atop him, and Ray tried hard not to stare, but the way Joel grit his teeth and the sound managed to seep out from around his canines was mesmerizing to hear and about ten times better to _watch_.

His eyes squeezed shut soon after, though, because he was getting close and he could feel the familiar, telling shake that meant Joel was, too. He breathed in deep, pressing his forehead against Joel’s collarbone as the older man took a shuddering breath himself, grasping Ray tight as he rocked into his hand. It only took one more thrust of his hips and a practically feral groan from Joel before Ray felt himself being hurled from the edge he’d been dangling over, climax imminent and all-consuming. Joel came first with a cry that bounced off the tile and echoed through the room, and Ray didn’t bother holding in a throaty moan of his own as he followed, teeth grazing Joel’s shirt and quite likely the skin beneath as he rode out his orgasm with Joel pumping him through its entirety. He felt the chest beneath him tense and relax, ultimately resting pliant beneath his own grasp by the time their grip went slack and they’d been reduced to mere breaths.

He figured he’d watch a jolt of panic go through Joel’s eyes when he finally looked up, figured he’d feel one unraveling deep in his _own_ gut at the implications of doing whatever it was they’d just done as coworkers, of all things. But instead, he saw intrigue, and heard it in the back of Joel’s voice when he spoke up.

“Tired yet?”

Ray nodded weakly, offering a smile when Joel tipped his head back and breathed out a soft agreement. They took a quick dip back in the pool to wash the salt from their skin, clambering out sopping wet once more and trudging out of the room together. Ray seemed to remember Joel saying something in the elevator about having dry clothes in his room on the fifth floor if he wanted them, which was an offer he also seemed to remember accepting, but he didn’t remember clocking out near immediately once he sat on the edge of Joel’s bed.

And if Joel remembered anything about the blanket that Ray woke up wrapped in beside him, he didn’t admit a word to it in the morning.


End file.
